


This is The End (My Friend)

by LiveAndLet_Die



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Angst, Bittersweet Ending, Courage, Dean &; OC friendship, Dean Dies, Dean is In Over His Head, Dean is a Legend, Dean-Centric, Death, Destiel if you squint - Freeform, Emotional Dean, Emotionally Repressed Dean, Friendly Dean, Future Fic, Gentle Dean, Hurt Dean Winchester, Hurt/Comfort, In-Universe Supernatural Fanfiction, Legendary Winchesters, Old Dean Winchester, One Shot, Other, POV Original Character, Reaper Backstory, Reaper OC, Reapers, Reaping souls, Sad Ending, Scared Dean, The Empty, The Winchesters and The Universe, final words, supernatural one shot, uncertain future
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-02-26
Updated: 2017-02-26
Packaged: 2018-09-27 03:05:01
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,013
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9949331
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LiveAndLet_Die/pseuds/LiveAndLet_Die
Summary: Pax is faced with a great task; one that marks the end of an era. She has been called upon to reap the soul of Dean Winchester.





	

“For real this time?”

”For real this time.”

 

Pax had heard lots of stories about Dean Winchester. She had spent many an evening sitting amongst her brethren, listening wide-eyed to The Chronicles of The Righteous Man, detailing just what an infatuating, infuriating specimen Dean had made himself out to be; and, despite knowing how he had broken sacred rules without regard for the consequences, Pax had found herself intrigued and fascinated with the troublesome human.

So, when she got the call the reap the soul of Dean Winchester, she couldn’t help but feel overwhelmed. The Officer had informed her with confidence that this was, in fact, his final reaping--- she would face no threat going to meet him, and she was simply to guide him to The Empty. He was old now, after all.

Pax doubted this. That was not the way of the fiery, bright soul that had defeated Death in his struggle to live. She received her assignment and made her way to Dean’s location, plagued with a weight in her heart; perhaps, she thought, regret. It was not her place, but she did not desire to be the reaper that snuffed out his light for good.

Pax approached Dean’s vicinity, and her surroundings began to materialize. She expected to a find a site scarred with the fallout of an epic showdown or supernatural event, a landscape fitting the likes of a warrior meeting his fate. Instead, Pax found herself standing in the scrubbed halls of a hospital, oblivious patients and staff passing around her.

The air of death emanated from a room just a few steps away, and she walked, taking her human form, and turned into the door: the blinds were shut and the windowsill and table held no sign of gifts and well-wishes, white walls bare except for a wooden cross above the bed. Various machines buzzed, and a nurse hovered next to one emitting a steady hum. The figure in the bed laid still and silent.

The doctors had known even when they had taken him in he would not survive his injuries, but, with the lack of any living relative cancelled any hope of placing him in hospice. Although, it didn’t matter now. He had mere seconds.

 

Right on queue, a clamor erupted from the machines, lines on monitors ran erratic as the nurse called in a code and began compressions. The hospital went silent as “Code Blue, Urgent Care Center” aired on the loudspeakers. A rush of footsteps came from the hall, and a team of practitioners flooded the room and stationed themselves around the patient, going through the motions as the young nurse took a step back.

Pax watched with solemn reserve as Dean Winchester’s life ebbed away and his body slowed its frantic struggle, until finally, the lines went flat, and his soul emerged from its shell

It manifested in its earthly form, as most souls chose to do, and Pax found herself gazing at Dean. He was human, after all--- nearing his sixties, Dean managed to look twice that, bearing premature lines that had deepened throughout his life. His hair was thinner and graying, still cut tight and military-like, framing a weathered face that must have been, at one time, incredibly beautiful, and still very handsome despite the havoc such little sleep and so much responsibility had wreaked on his features. Skin fell more loosely around his form, which failed to fill out parts of his clothing as it once had, and it gave Dean an air of hollowness about him. That emptiness most likely went much deeper than just appearance. Manicured salt and pepper stubble deepened the shadows beneath his sunken cheekbones and made more sharp the edge of his jaw. He wore a dark shirt and jeans, and a solid grey flannel.

Pax half expected Dean to do something rash and dangerous, to somehow avoid his fate - but he made no such attempt. He just looked back at her, tired. A curtain had fallen between Dean and Pax and the world, muting the clamour in his hospital room as doctors began to tear off his clothing, searching for pulses and putting tubes down his throat, trying to breath life back into the patient. Dean watched, detached, catching a last glimpse at his mangled body.

A code nurse had pulled out a defibrillator, and the team gathered close, shouting various things as they pressed it against his chest. The line on the heart monitor jumped, and Dean looked over to Pax with a glimmer of hope. Pax just shook her head. The resuscitation efforts had no further results, and Dean turned and walked towards his reaper, keeping his eyes locked on hers. She saw no resentment or defiance in his gaze - and no fear for that matter - and she recognized just where the legends were right, and where the were wrong. Pax reached out her hand to the weary traveller. Dean did not take it.

“I don’t need the talk. I get it.”

“That’s alright, Dean.”

“Okay.”

Dean still hadn’t moved, an odd expression fixed on his face.

“You got a name, reaper?”

“Pax.”

“Okay, Pax. Could I ask you a favor?”

Pax hesitated, taken aback.

“No, no, it’s not a trick. I know the gist, you aren’t supposed to talk much to me. But, I think I get a free pass here.

A smile pulled at the corner of Dean’s mouth, not a smirk, more of an assurance - Pax only sensed gentleness from him. She took a minute to think, and decided to make an exception. Carefully, she answered.

“What do you need?”

Dean looked at her.

“Come take a walk with me.”

...

The pair had walked wordless until the hall opened up into the atrium, and they started down the stairs. Dean broke the silence.

“ You know, I met my first reaper here. Well, there was another, but, here, I really got to know one.”

He looked out over the hospital, surveying the groups and families and lonely people as they moved around the floor, with an almost nostalgic appreciation.

“I was supposed to die, right here, thirty one years ago.”

He continued without a prompt.

“I think it would have been better that way. To not have broken the natural order, or whatever. I thought that even right after I got saved. It would have been better, every time after that.”

Pax listened intently as they finished their descent down the first set of steps. She found herself uninhibited by the many rules she was breaking as she strided next to the old man, and, Pax realized she was almost enjoying it. Never before had she understood her angelic brothers who had fallen for Dean, but now she could see what could drive them to do so. Pax continued beside him.

“ I got a second chance. Then another one, and another one, and another - and sure, I had different opportunities, but I never really… changed. ’Still the same old sonuvabitch. Same old mistakes. Fucked shit up. I got a hell of a lot done, though, I know that. Saw a lot too.”

Dean rested a hand in his pocket.

“And I wish someone had given me a hint about the whole family thing. Turns out I didn’t really know who was family till they were gone. But they were. And we were family, even though I couldn’t see straight. I just thank God they were there.”

They had reached the bottom of the staircase, and Dean stopped, and looked right over to Pax; and she was surprised at the intensity of his green eyes against the rest of his faded, graying form. His mouth opened, but he took a moment to speak.

“And now, I’ve gone full circle. My family’s dead, and I’m finally dead, too.”

His words fell from his tongue with an odd softness, content despite their bluntness. Dean started walking again just as promptly as he had stopped, and Pax matched her pace to the man who had refocused on his surroundings. They left the building unbenounced to its inhabitants. Pax smiled, looking over at Dean as he stared out over the courtyard with peaceful attentiveness.

“You ever come down from wherever you reapers go and just, watch?”

“Watch?”

“Y’know, just look around at things, see all the sights. Count the stars, feel the sun on your skin. Watch the bees.”

Dean’s voice trailed away, and Pax couldn’t tell if he was looking for a response. She was accustomed to the sentimental, often incoherent ramblings of dead people, but never, never had they actually talked to her.

“Dean?”

“Yea, Pax?”

“Why are you telling me all this?”

Dean hesitated before he talked.

“Well, who else am I supposed to spill my guts to?”

Pleased with the answer, Pax bothered Dean no more as they leaned against and old car in the parking lot. The pair spent a long while in thoughtful silence.

…

This time, Pax decided it was her turn to speak.

“Is this what you needed?”

Dean looked up in surprise, wrinkled hand stopping its meditative caressing of the car’s finish.

“What do you mean?”

“Closure.”

“Yeah, I guess you could say that.”

Dean looked up, squinting, his eyes following a blackbird as it crossed the sky.

“When angels die, where do they go? Do they just… fade away?”

Pax answered with care, as Dean’s soul became visibly distraught.

“No, not exactly. They become a part of the empty. I believe humans call them stars.”

Dean chuckled.

“So, when you send me on my way, I’m gonna be a star?”

“I am not sure what human souls become, whether they manifest as light.”

Dean’s voice had slowed, beginning to sound more rough and uncertain.

“Will I see them? My brother? And- I mean, can I? Is it possible, will I still be conscious, when I’m there?”

Dean’s voice faltered.

“Will they know it’s me?”

Pax felt her heart strain for this soldier facing yet another ambivalent future. He was so very scared. She did not have the heart to tell him that she did not have the answers he desired, and solemnly decided to become a guide, instead of a companion.

“Dean, the Empty is everything Heaven, Hell, and Purgatory isn’t. It’s quiet. It’s peace. It’s final. There are no questions there--- it is simply a place that relieves you of everything you carried in life, and in death. It’s the end you desire, the end you believed death to be before you learned the truth.”

Dean’s eyes had welled up, a tear falling fast and hot without sound down his cheek.

He reached through the open window of the car, tenderly retrieving a leather-bound book from the passenger seat. He took one last look at the interior of the Chevy, and held the journal out to Pax. It was worn, the edges of its pages yellowed, “D. W.” etched very small into the cover.

Dean’s voice was very soft, filled with emotion.

“Here. This is everything. Give it to Claire Novak for me, please.”

Wordlessly, Pax took the book into her hands. This man was owed a final favor.

The sun shone bright on the pair standing in the hospital parking lot, and people went about their day--- continuing their trivial pursuits and superficial schedule, completely unaware of the incredible event happening just beyond their senses. While most of the lives were uninteresting and inconsequential, and the world still relatively monotonous, It was all given meaning - value - importance beyond their imagination - by a man, and his family, who were but mere strangers to them. It was a delicate balance, that world, but most of them will never know just how delicate it really is, thanks to Dean Winchester.

Pax reached out, and this time, Dean stepped towards her. She placed her hand on his shoulder. All tension left in his soul had dissipated, his load significantly lighter, his heart ready to face whatever was on the other side.

“Are you ready?”

The old man nodded.

Dean Winchester faded away into the oncoming night.

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for reading! As have just begun sharing my works on AO3, I would appreciate any feedback I can get. If you liked it, leave me a note! And, I hope you enjoyed this work, because writing it threw me into an existential crisis complete with binge-eating and gross sobbing.
> 
> Anyways, have a nice day :)
> 
> Check out my new blog, [ spncodasource, ](https://spncodasource.tumblr.com/) where a post an original coda following every new episode of supernatural!


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